The Iskitim Museum of Arts and History houses a painting “Portrait of the Old Man Krasavin”. It was created by Ivan Petrovich Popov in 1970.
The painting depicts Vasily Andreyevich Krasavin. The artist managed to convey the essence of his character without an extensive description of the surroundings, using only details such as the man’s wrinkled hands, tired face, and steady and confident gaze.
Ivan Popov only painted portraits of those people that he knew and loved. In addition to the portrait from the Iskitim Museum’s collection, in 1964, he also created a study “Pyotr Krasavin” which is kept at the All-Russian Shukshin Memorial Museum-Reserve. On the back of the study, Ivan Popov indicated the place where it was painted — the village of Anos. This detail was very helpful for researchers. The museum contacted the administration of the village of Anos and established that in 1937, a large family of Krasavins moved from Verkh-Ai to Anos. The family consisted of Vasily Andreyevich Krasavin (born in 1892), his wife Larisa Fadeyevna Krasavina, and nine children — five sons (Ivan, Nikolay, Mikhail, Prokopy, and Petro) and four daughters (Dusya, Nyura, Anna, and Tasya). The only thing to find out was the connection between Ivan Popov and this family. The veil of secrecy was lifted by Vasily Krasavin’s granddaughter, Raisa Mikhailovna. She revealed that Ivan Popov and Vasily Shukshin were friends with Taisiya Ilminskaya (née Krasavina) and her husband Mikhail.
“During that visit to Anos, I felt that I had been
idolized there. Mikhail’s wife gave birth to a girl and, as a joke or in
earnest, we celebrated her christening. There was no church in Anos, so they
baptized people in their own way. They would gather together and celebrate. It
was the same that time. I was even declared the girl’s godfather,” the artist
recalled in his autobiography. It was in Anos that Ivan Popov drew inspiration
for many of his future works. There, he created portraits of members of the
Krasavin family and the painting “The Estate of the Artist Gurkin”.
